A constellation of gratitude for parents, wife and country: Ramnath Subramanian

Next to God, I celebrate family and country, and in both areas I am bountifully blessed.

There is a black-and-white photograph of my mother holding me in her arms, which was colorized by my father using old techniques, that shows the love and pride she felt in her possession. Her arms circle my body in opposite directions to form a perfectly safe cradle, as though to ensure that no harm would ever come to me.

She died rather young, but her years on earth gave me all the motherhood from which to build a monument.

If I have an affinity for the stories the stars tell at night, I have my father to thank for it. Lying on a charpai on the terrace on hot summer nights in New Delhi, my father would point out the various constellations, and teach me about light, spectra, and astronomical distances.

How fascinating it was to learn that every star that belonged to any constellation lay in different time periods, thus granting us a view to a long corridor of history.

And I learned about Ramanujan, and the story behind the number 1729. I also learnt about prime numbers, perfect numbers, and happy numbers.

My father also taught me love of poetry by his daily recitations from the Tirukkural.

He was the sun in the firmament of our daily lives. And we all looked up to the galaxy that was my mother.

A happy childhood and upbringing count for a lot, but “whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the Lord.”

After a long and circuitous path that covered the variegated vicissitudes of life, I met my wife Maria in the most extraordinary of circumstances. It was as though a divine hand had played a part in our meeting.

I am not ashamed to admit that whatever man I was before I met Maria, she made me at least a hundredfold better, opening my eyes to embrace God more fully and strongly, and to see the light in all things.

With honesty and passion that is the hallmark of her Italian heritage, Maria can be vibrantly vocal or exquisitely introspective, but she always gets to the center of things with brilliance and brio.